The American Civil Liberties Union called out Prince William County school officials for blocking students’ access to educational websites about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
The “LGBT” block in the school system’s filter violates students’ First Amendment rights, the organization told Superintendent Steven Walts in a letter Monday.
When students attempt to reach websites for GSA Network, Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Day of Silence, and It Gets Better, computers display a blue screen and a message saying, “You have reached a web site blocked by Prince William County Public School’s Acceptable Use Policy 295.”
“Whether or not school administrators agree with the content of the censored websites, secondary school students are mature enough to understand that a school does not endorse or support speech to which it merely permits access on a nondiscriminatory basis,” wrote Rebecca K. Glenberg, legal director of Virginia’s ACLU.
School system spokesman Ken Blackstone told the Associated Press that school officials are reviewing the letter and will respond. Blackstone acknowledged that the filtering software does block some LGBT sites, but without a specific intent to block educational sites.
